Deep-Water
Depositional Patterns and Sequence Stratigraphic
Framework of the Permian Brushy Canyon Formation across the Delaware Basin,
West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, U.S.A.
Baptista, Noelia1, Michael Gardner2 (1) PDVSA, Puerto
La Cruz, Venezuela (2) Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
This study evaluates regional deep-water depositional patterns
and the stratigraphic framework derived from outcrop
of the Permian, Guadalupian Brushy Canyon Formation
in the Delaware Basin
of west Texas and New Mexico. Three hundred wells and 1,640 km
of 2D seismic were used to extend the high-resolution stratigraphic
framework and test predictions derived from outcrop. Although the outcrop
represents only 1.2 % of the study area (245 km2 out of 20,000 km2),
the stratigraphic framework and the associated models
provided important information for subsurface interpretation that otherwise
would be difficult to conceive. The Adjustment, Initiation Growth and Retreat
(AIRG) model, correlation strategies, facies and
architectural elements analysis in the outcrop provided the basis for this
study and were applicable to a regional framework encompassing 20,000 km2 area. Integration of different scales and sources of data
was an effective approach to interpret the basin fill from low-resolution
subsurface data and it allowed to relate oil fields
trends to stratigraphy.
The presence of
three major Brushy Canyon fan complexes in the northern Delaware Basin
(Carlsbad, Hobbs
and Huapache) is confirmed through correlation and
mapping of subsurface data. This establishes the presence of four major fan
complexes: Outcrop, Huapache, Carlsbad
and Hobbs. A
fifth fan complex, the upper Brushy fan, is recognized in the southeast, with
sediment input from the Central Basin Platform.
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